For Lebanese Linked to Israel, a Quick March Through Court

By JOHN KIFNER

Published: July 8, 2000

BEIRUT, Lebanon, July 7—
At the Military Tribunal, around the corner from the grand statue of a helmeted and booted soldier clutching a book and the scales of justice, is a series of bulletin boards with a list of 2,135 names.

These are the former members of Israel's proxy militia, the South Lebanon Army, who turned themselves in after the Israeli Army abruptly pulled out of its ''security zone'' in South Lebanon last month, or were caught by Hezbollah guerrillas, and are now accused of collaborating with the enemy.

On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, the military court sits in marathon session, a half dozen senior officers on the bench led by Brig. Gen. Maher Safieddine, plowing through the cases against the militiamen, issuing sentences overnight.

So far the court has handed down 667 verdicts in 13 batches of former militiamen, largely Christians from an area that is predominantly Shiite Muslim. About 1 percent of the defendants are acquitted, according to local news reports.

Nearly all the men coming to trial appear to be minor players, rank-and-file soldiers who say they were conscripted or joined because it was the only job available. By their accounts, they mostly just moped about and never hurt anyone.

With few exceptions, the sentences run about a year; some are as short as eight weeks. And the militiamen are told they cannot go back to their home villages for a time.

Gen. Antoine Lahd, the commander of the South Lebanon Army, escaped into Israel along with other senior officers. They are expected to live abroad in comfortable exile.

One of the few senior officers who was tried here, Maj. Emile Nasr, who was in charge of operations in Jezzine, was sentenced to 13 jail terms of 10 years each on multiple charges of collaborating with the enemy and disclosing army secrets.

He shelled Sidon in 1997 in revenge for the death of his niece and nephew in a roadside bombing, killing 7 civilians and wounding 42. After several attempts on his life, he reportedly cut a deal with Hezbollah to supply information, then turned himself over to the Lebanese Army a month before the end of the occupation.

Another officer, Etienne Saqr, who is believed to be in Israel, was given a 15-year sentence in absentia. Known as Abu Arz, he was the head of a notorious far-right Christian militia, the Guardians of the Cedars.

For the most part, the trials seem perfunctory. On a recent day, when the court was trying to get through 68 cases, most were adjourned because defendants had no lawyers. The bar association has sent batches of lawyers, in their black robes with white fur tassels, as public defenders, but they are unfamiliar with the cases and ask for time to read the records. For the most part, they plead for mercy, saying times were hard under the Israeli occupation.

One defense lawyer, Fadi Kanaan, asked for mercy and a general amnesty for all the defendants, saying: ''It was so dramatic for the inhabitants of the south to live under occupation, isolated from their country and government. They did not collaborate with the enemy out of principle, but were forced to do so as a result of the occupation.''

One defendant was convicted of being a double agent who turned his sister over to the Israelis. Another, charged with giving false information to army intelligence, said that he first had good information, but that as he was pressed for more, he ran dry and started making it up. One man said he had risen to the rank of sergeant in charge of transporting fuel, but was discharged for stealing gasoline.

The lawyer for George Kawas, who was accused of being a longtime militiaman, pleaded for mercy, saying, ''You know what poverty is like, when money is put in somebody's face like a carrot.''

The trials have not been without criticism. Amnesty International has called them a ''parody of justice'' that ''can in no way help national reconciliation.''

Hezbollah officials have criticized the court as too lenient, calling the trials ''ceremonial'' and the sentences ''scandalous.'' The leading newspaper, An Nahar, has reported incidents in which villagers have beaten up returning militiamen who received what they saw as light sentences. United Nations officials said most of those attacked were Shiite Muslims who has worked with the mostly Christian S.L.A.

On the Christian side, Cardinal Nasrallah Pierre Sfeir, the Maronite patriarch, said he was forming a committee ''to ensure that the trials are fair and unbiased and that treatment of all prisoners is respectful of human rights.''

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U.N. Poised to Move In

BEIRUT, July 7 (Reuters) -- The United Nations expects to send troops to South Lebanon as soon as it is assured that Israeli troops are no longer making forays into Lebanon, the United Nations envoy to the Middle East said today.

The envoy, Terje Roed-Larsen, said at a news conference after a day's talks with President Emile Lahoud and senior Lebanese officials that Israel was willing to stop encroaching on Lebanon, a key condition set by the government before it approves deployment of Unifil, the United Nations force.

''Unifil will only deploy with the full cooperation of the government of Lebanon, and the decision of Lebanon is that there will be no deployment before the violations are resolved,'' said Mr. Larsen, who held extensive talks in Israel on Thursday. ''There appears to be a will within the government of Israel to rectify the violations, but it remains to be seen whether deeds follow words.''

Photo: Relatives outside the Military Court in Beirut, where 2,000 ex-militiamen who aided Israel in the south are being briskly tried and sentenced. (Associated Press)